Childhood Diplopia and its Role in the Development of Female Genital Anxiety: The Case of Phoebe

A theoretical contribution to the psychoanalytic literature, besides being clear and possessing its own internal logic, must present a fresh slant on clinical material, one not provided by existing theory. The clinical material presented in this case explicates psychoanalytic understanding of the concept of “female genital anxiety,” following the lead of previous contributors whose work is described below.

This study provides an excellent opportunity to explore the clinical usefulness of the concept of female genital anxiety, because it focuses on the psychic vicissitudes of a young woman whose conflicts have major origin in the oedipal phase of development. An extra dimension, a sort of “doubleness,” is provided by the analysand's double vision (binocular diplopia), which resulted from childhood surgeries for a congenital eye defect of severe cross-eyedness (esotropia). It is precisely this doubleness that makes the case useful in elucidating female genital anxiety: the subtle, shifting interplay between the patient's double vision and eye surgeries on the one hand and her genital anxieties and genital surgeries on the other.